TO THE SAME.
Fontainebleau, Aug., 1805.
Yesterday I had the pleasure of giving you a second proof of affection, and whether it succeeds or not, nothing can deprive me of the satisfaction I receive from the act. A travers all the embarrassments and tumults of a retour de chasse, guns firing, horses prancing, la meute des chiens, piqueurs, gamekeepers, guards, in short, a thousand objects, from each of which I should have fled on any other occasion, I delivered my placet to the Emperor, who received it willingly and graciously. He was just driving off in his calèche, after a successful hunt in the Park of Fontainebleau. Now the little agitation and fretfulness of the business is over, I have leisure to look back and be surprised at the kindness and politeness with which I was treated, and the respect I uniformly received in circumstances the least likely to inspire it. With the smallest knowledge of the local customs or entours, I should not have suffered any fatigue or inconvenience; but being a total stranger, without one common acquaintance here, and Antoine a millstone, as I said yesterday, I had every disadvantage. It was not true, but a mistake, that I could not go into the court I mentioned yesterday. The Empress had ordered women should not remain there; but the wife of the concièrge, whose apartment was in it, offered me her salon, newspapers, &c., where I was quite retired, and much better lodged than travellers usually are anywhere. I never in the whole business met the slightest incivility, insinuation, freedom, or rebuff. I glided everywhere, whether others were refused or not, and I met with every mark of interest and bienveillance. By the bye, the placet itself was a most pitiful performance, ten degrees lower than my address beginning ‘Etrangère et seule,’ which had something like style and energy. It is singular, too, that one who was First Secretary, &c., made me, against my own opinion, make an official mistake in it—Votre Majesté and Vous, instead of Elle. How few people know their own métier.
TO THE SAME.
Paris, Aug., 1805.
The Baroness, Col. ——, Mrs. F——, and her young ladies, passed the evening here yesterday. Mrs. F. was in great spirits. While I was at Fontainebleau they had all dined with Lady ——, and danced in the evening. They were in such raptures with his dancing as I thought only Zephyr or Dupont could excite. I must tell you the —— show us particular respect in being so happy together before us; for they have the most disgraceful fights in the presence of others. Not a word of truth in Mrs. ——’s elopement. I regret all the good morality I wasted upon it. As to your insisting on my not telling you all the scandal I hear, I am sorry to say it is a vain command. Until I get a female friend, you must listen to it; for I will not be at the trouble, like Midas’ wife,[43] of digging a hole in the earth to tell it to; and ‘un secret est un pesant fardeau.’
We have really a curious set of Anglo-Parisians. Col. —— puts me in mind of some one in an English farce, when he tells one, à propos of nothing, how he and his wife always travel separately, with two equipages each; and how they never go to sea in the same ship, as ’twould be hazarding too much in one bottom; and how he ‘likes things in a Great Style, because he has always been accustomed to things in a Great Style.’ In short, if you were to be ever so angry, I must be diverted with these people, and must tell you what diverts me. My mind reposes on my little Baroness, who, I see, is quietly making the best of a tiresome husband, and, seeming completely meek and gentle, is yet always contriving to rein him in from exposing himself by heat of temper and vanity, which he is ever on the point of doing; educating her son so well, and giving all the credit of it to him; keeping clear of all the petite ville squabbles, civil to everybody, and intimate with none except one, to whom she is uniformly and impressively attentive.